


Spitting Out Seeds

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Marvel
Genre: Bad Decisions, Complicated Relationships, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, M/M, Power Dynamics, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 05:05:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16695970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Rewrite of my other SOS series.When Loki falls from the Bifrost, he lands hard upon the planet that will soon be named as Sakaar. He meets a curious stranger named the Grandmaster, and feels off-balance with him from the start.





	Spitting Out Seeds

 Loki is no stranger to the blackness of infinity.

He sits, weightless, within the ever-expanding darkness of space: there are no stars to be seen, for he is at the very edges of time and space alike, entirely alone. Cross-legged, straight-backed and breathing steadily despite the lack of atmosphere, Loki loosely sets his palms upon his knees. Suspended as he is, so far away from anything at all, he is hyperaware of the sounds his own body makes, his every exhalation and inhalation deafening to his ears, the slow, steady beat of his heart inescapable as the beat of a military drum.

Truly ( _and what business of that of Loki’s? Truth isn’t in his nature_ ), Loki isn’t here. Truly ( _and why should it be? Loki is punished whether he lies or not)_ , Loki is sprawled in the dirt of a barren planet, thirsty, and starving, and tired. Truly ( _funny that he should start thinking of the truth now, when the first and last truth is looming_ ), Loki is dying.

( _Death. That is truth. Life is but a lie.)_

The fall from the Bifrost had been long: hit hard in the side of the skull by a chunk of the fragmenting bridge and made dazed and sodden with his own blood, he had been unable to concentrate enough to drag his magic into line, entirely unable to control his fall, to help himself. He had fallen through space, seeing familiar and unfamiliar stars pass him by as his magic desperately tried to hook onto whatever purchase it might find – he bled in and out of small pocket dimensions, even coming dangerously close to a black hole’s grave pull, until falling to this planet.

And by the  _Norns_ , by the stars above, if Loki was anything but cleaved open, bleeding, dazed, he might be fine. Might draw his magic to himself, make water for himself, conjure a bare morsel of food: Loki can subsist easily on the stuff of magic, if he is hale and hearty, but here?

It has been days, and Loki’s magic can barely repair his broken bones or stifle the pain in his chest, let alone repair the gash in his neck, and the truth is that Loki, Father of Lies, is dying. Deception cannot stave off death itself, but it can make it easier, can’t it?

So often has his deception smoothed the way from a rocky path to an easy one.

( _So often, it has paved the road to his destruction, but that matters little now.)_

And so here Loki is, sitting in the lap of infinity. There is no sun to burn at his eyes or scorch his skin; there is no wind to play with his hair or pain his open wound; there is no hard ground beneath him, digging into his hips and forcing its bitter taste into his mouth.

Loki stands, looking down at his feet. Then he is looking up at them – there is no gravity here, after all. No up, no down. This is the end of the universe, and Loki is using the very last of his seiðr to project himself here, to  _be_  here in every way but truth. He thinks of Thor, unthinkable, unmeasurable distances away from him, and he wonders what has become of him. Does Odin hug him? Does Frigga kiss his rosy cheeks? Do his friends clap their hands to his backs, and laugh with him? Do they celebrate the demise of Loki, the Frost Giant in their midst, mad and angry and monstrous?

Loki sighs, softly.

“Mm, what is  _this_?” The shock burst through Loki like a sudden wave, and here on the edge of infinity he turns about on his heel, staring in every direction – suddenly, the lacking gravity is a hurdle instead of a novelty, and he lets out a sharp sound of frustration that fades, unheard, as it leaves his mouth. There is no sound in space: there is only Loki spinning in his place, nauseous, until he forces himself to still.

The space is still infinite on his every side, but the energy is different, there  _is_ … Something. Someone.

“Oh, this is a real meet-cute, huh? One immortal to another and, uh, all that jazz.” There’s a soft chuckle that echoes from one side of Loki’s compounded skull to the other, and he furrows his brow, heaving in a gasp of air that isn’t truly there ( _his ribs ache anyway. Go figure_.)  “You come here often?”

Is he hallucinating? Has the bleed come to his brain, perhaps, and triggered some sort of hallucination, even in his meditative state? Or perhaps he’s fallen entirely unconscious. The voice is soft and melodious, edged with a strange humour, but Loki doesn’t believe he has heard it before, and it strikes no chord of familiarity. “Hello?”

“Hey there,” says the voice, accompanied with warm breath on the back of his neck, but when Loki turns to meet the mouth it comes from, nobody is there. Loki’s tongue touches against his lower lip, and he tastes the space about him. Loki’s sense of taste has always been sensitive ( _Loki, the viper, with his tongue darting out that he might use it in place of his eyes)_ , sensitive enough to taste evidence upon the air like the snake he is so oft compared to – there is no atmosphere here, but particles of dust reach the edges of the universe, even though Loki himself is naught but a projection. He tastes the dust of some dead planets, tastes the remnants of light from far, far away, but there’s something else – a spicy, ephemeral scent that is simultaneously new and quite familiar. He reaches toward the source of the taste, and grabs at it.

When his projection actually touches something, he is surprised, but he works through his shock and grasps at the shiny, leather-like fabric beneath his palm: it begins to bleed into being like one of Loki’s own illusions, and he sees a robe of the softest, periwinkle blue, accentuated with lilac belt and buckles, and a  _face_ —

“Hello,” the face says. Soft, brown skin, golden eyes, and grey hair… Loki looks at the stripe of blue that runs from the figure’s lip down to the base of his chin, and he lets out a soft exhalation. This can’t be a figure of his hallucinations – why conjure  _this_ , an unfamiliar fellow in unfamiliar dress? Simply because he is handsome, or because he has silver in his hair? Ridiculous. “You know, you keep  _ignoring_  me when I talk to you, and I don’t like that. You just not a talker, or is it some kinda insult, ‘cause uh, I don’t take well to being insulted, and I—”

“I’m in some pain,” Loki interrupts. The figure’s golden eyes widen slightly, his lips twitching in amusement. “Forgive me if I’m not chatty enough for your liking.” The other man stares at him, his wide eyes betraying an apparent surprise, his lips slightly parted, and then the other man  _laughs_. It’s a soft chuckle aimed directly at him, derisive and fond at once.

“I don’t like to be interrupted,” he says, his tone saccharine. “But I’ll, ha, I’ll make an exception for  _you_.” Loki’s brow furrows, and the stranger’s eyes flit from Loki’s face to his left hand, which is still fisted in the stiff collar of his robe. Loki releases it, and draws his hand back to himself, clasping both hands before him. “It takes a lotta power to get out here, to where the universe is eating into the, um, into the ether, even as a projection… Like I said, you come here often?” The stranger’s voice is quiet, thoughtful, and he looks at Loki as if Loki holds some new secret, some curiosity he knows not of.

“Not often. But sometimes.” The last time Loki had projected himself so far out into space, so far away from the run and whir of the universe had been half a millennium ago, when a Ljósálf had made one of his sons as a wolf, savage and wild, and so Valí had murdered his brother, Narfi. And to finish the ordeal, the Ljósálf had sent Loki the pelt of his now-wolfish son, and Loki had felt his very heart cleaved in two.

“When was the last time you were here?” the stranger asks, and Loki feels his projected self stiffen, feels himself move immediately to avoid the question.

“Well, I’ve never been  _here_  before,” Loki says. The stranger barks out a laugh, then puts one hand up to his face, tapping a long, smooth index finger against his lips.

“Run that one— Take me through that again, honey. How come you come here, uh, _sometimes_ , but you haven’t been here before?” Loki’s loosely clasped hands come further up his body, and he crosses his arms tightly over his chest. Why should he feel so defensive, when he is trying to  _die_? When he is trying to cleave out a little peace for himself as the life finally leaves his body?

“The universe is ever expanding. I have been at the edge of the universe before, but not  _here_. The universe’s edges, after all, are forever changing as time goes by.” Another laugh, another! What, does Loki seem like a comedian? His irritation must show in his face, because the stranger’s laugh trails off, and he tuts softly at Loki, shaking his head.

“You don’t need to take it so, ah,  _personally_. I just don’t meet people like you often. You’re just so… snappy!” Another soft little chuckle, and then the stranger says, “You’re in pain huh, huh?” A beat passes between them.

“Yes,” Loki says.

“You’re  _dying_ ,” the stranger says, “And you can still project an image of yourself all the way out here? What is this, millions of light years from wherever, uh, your _body_ is?” The stranger sounds impressed, and curious besides, but Loki is finding he cannot concentrate as he could a moment before. He feels weakened and dizzy, and his neck is throbbing.

Soon. Soon.

“Yes,” Loki says. The stranger’s lips quirk at one edge: within his mouth, Loki can see the gleam of his white, white teeth. For the first time, looking into this stranger’s eyes, Loki sees a hint of danger, a bloodthirsty element. Is Loki safe? Yes, of course he is: he’s a soon-to-be ghost on the edge of forever. Where is more safety to be found than in death?

“You’re powerful,” the stranger says. He doesn’t sound impressed this time, having carefully soothed that show of emotion away, but instead comments the fact in the same way someone might politely comment upon the weather. “What else can you do?” Loki opens his mouth, but his concentration falters. It is becoming difficult for him to concentrate on the projection, difficult to meditate in his place. He tastes his own blood on his tongue, thick, and coppery.

“Die,” Loki whispers, blearily, dazedly, and the projection fades from the space it had pretended to occupy.

Here is the truth of the matter: Loki is sprawled on his belly in the dirt of an unfamiliar planet, an unfamiliar sun burning at his very flesh, and his open neck is letting his blood boil ( _literally! He feels it bubbling away from his skin!)_  in the harsh light. He can no longer deceive his body and avoid its ragged sensations, cannot pretend away the coming of his death, and he coughs, gargles, feels blood seep from his dry, chapped lips.

Then Loki feels a hand upon the wound on his neck, sudden, shocking, and his vision turns from brightest light to blackness once again.

❀ ❁ ✿ ❀ ✿ ❁ ❀

There are times when wakefulness comes to Loki with all the alacrity of a sudden blow, where he wakes in his bed and immediately jumps up, dressing himself and throwing himself with passion into whatever project or work he has to hand. This is not one of those times. Stirring softly from his deep sleep, Loki feels his eyes slowly open, and he takes in golden walls and wide windows in the hazy way one does when one is still half-asleep. Glimpsing a lilac sky as his eyes roam the room, he feels a fleeting curiosity, then he lets his eyelids close and lets himself sleep again. It is hours later, or perhaps mere minutes, that Loki wakes once more, his mind a blur of half-forgotten dreams and sleepy memories of warm meadows and beautiful woods, and sits up in bed.

The mattress is luxuriously comfortable, made of a soft and silken foam, and the sheets are cool and light against his skin, as if Loki had been sleeping in a bed made of the clouds themselves. Sun shines through the windows, and Loki pulls himself to the edge of the bed, his feet padding on the thickly carpeted beneath him until his hands touch the window sill, and he can look out of the window.

The bright sun is not painful as it had been before, and the atmosphere itself seems thicker, yet Loki feels in his very gut that he has not moved too far from where he had lain dying. So in tune is Loki with the rhythms of magic in the air that he can almost always determine where he is in the scheme of the universe, for the magic flows differently from one planet to the next – and this is for the best. If Loki could not negotiate his own travels through the universe, he would never have been able to return home.

The atmosphere is not the only thing to have changed: it seems to have undergone some sort of terraforming, for grass grows where previously there had been nothing but charred dirt, and the air is full with the scent of new blossoms and quick-growing trees, their chlorophyll scent heavy in his nose.

“You’re awake.” Loki turns away from the window, and he looks at the stranger. He’s tall, Loki sees now that their feet stand on even ground, taller than Loki himself. For the first time, Loki becomes aware of what he’s wearing, dressed in pyjamas of green, embroidered silk; for the first time, Loki wonders how he got from dying on this burnt-up planet to standing here, alive and well. His palm touches the side of his neck, where the chunk of Bifrost had nearly decapitated him – he feels no blood, nor even scarring where it had bitten into his flesh. The flesh is smooth. “Oh, I, uh, fixed that,” the stranger purrs, seeming rather pleased with himself. “Thought I’d keep you alive a little bit longer.”

“The planet… You’re terraforming?” The other man’s eyebrows raise slightly, his eyes widening as if Loki has just insulted him.

“Uh,  _no_. I’m fixing it up, like I fixed you. What, you’ve never seen magic before? Maybe you’re not as powerful as I thought.” That’s snide. Loki can see the look on his face, _studying_ him, as if trying to see how Loki might respond.

“Magic can’t do this,” Loki mutters, turning back to the window and gesturing. “This is a vast planet: the amount of energy you’d have to expend into the atmosphere’s thickness  _alone_ : this is impossible for a single person.” The stranger chuckles, bringing his fingers up toward his chin and touching playfully over the stripe of blue paint that decorates it.

“For you, maybe. I, uh, I have a few tricks up my sleeves. And up my skirts, too!” That laugh again, but this time it isn’t directed at Loki, and Loki finds he rather likes the sound, low and sonorous. The stranger steps closer, his lips quirked into that awful, enticing smile. “So… What’s your name?”

“Loki,” he says slowly. There are a thousand other names he might offer, but his first is the one that comes swiftest to his tongue. Or— Is it his first? He knows not. Perhaps he was once known by a different name, when he was born and birthed on Jötunheimr, and Loki is but the name Odin gave him, as he labels stolen relics kept safe in the caverns beneath Asgard.

“ _Loki_ ,” the stranger repeats, as if tasting the word and _enjoying_ it. Loki inhales softly, loosely holding his hands before his belly. “Huh. You’ve, mmm, yeah, you’ve pinged around the universe a little bit, haven’t you, Loki?”

“So what if I have?”

“So  _defensive_! Anyone would think I hadn’t just, uh, just pulled you from the dirt, sweetheart. Healed your wounds, put you to  _bed_ …”

“I don’t mean to be ungrateful,” Loki says, glancing between the man before him and the planet outside. How much time has passed? How could this man be so  _powerful_ , to change an entire planet? That flit of danger he had seen in the other man’s eyes – how easy might it be, he wonders, for this man to tear Loki a apart?  _A little bit longer_ , he said. What is Loki to be, a toy for this man? “My apologies,” he says softly. “What— What is your name?”

“You can, ha, you can call me Grandmaster.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Loki says immediately, and the Grandmaster chuckles, reaching out. His fingers are warm where they touch Loki’s skin, and Loki wants to flinch back, but there’s something about the way the other man looks at him, the way those golden eyes settle on Loki’s face. As powerful as this Grandmaster might be, he seems curious – about Loki. Loki is a mess of emotions – he can feel his hunger in the pit of his belly fighting with his anxiety, but he cannot deny he feels a  _strange_  magnetism toward this  _strange_  man.

“I’m not like you, Loki,” the Grandmaster whispers, the words dripping from his dark lips like so much honey, and his thumb brushes the smooth edge of Loki’s chin, in a mirror of where his own paint is. “I don’t have a hundred names to choose from.” Loki’s eyes widen, and he feels himself _stiffen_ , feels the immediate instinct to draw right away.

“You know me?” he demands, his tone harsher than he had intended, but the Grandmaster just grins wider.

“I know your work,” he says, mildly. “Like I said – you’ve been around the universe a few times, huh? You’re worshiped on a few planets.”

“Twenty-seven,” Loki says:  _a few_  just seems so meagre in comparison. The Grandmaster lets out a short bark of laughter, cupping Loki’s cheek and feeling its cool marble beneath his palm. Why doesn’t Loki stop him, slap his touch away? If this man can build an atmosphere for a planet, there is no limit to what he could do to Loki: no doubt he could make Loki melt or fall to pieces beneath his very touch. There is fear there, undoubtedly, fear that the Grandmaster might hurt him, but that is not the only emotion that motivates him – no, there is some greater curiosity here, a desire. Where else will he go, after all?

( _He should run. He should run as fast as he might, and never again look back behind him, as a rabbit should run from a wolf. He stays stockstill, and he keeps his gaze on the Grandmaster.)_

“You keep  _count_? That’s so cute.” The condescension grates.

“I am not  _cute_ , Grandmaster—”

“Thought you, uh, you weren’t gonna call me that?” the Grandmaster asks, and Loki cannot help it: taken by surprise, beaten in this game of wagging tongues, he laughs softly himself. It’s strange – he hasn’t had such back and forth since what seems like years ago, since before he and Thor invaded Jotunheim, and since… Loki cuts off that line of thought, and he reaches up, grasping at the Grandmaster’s wrist and drawing his hand away from Loki’s face.

“I should go,” he says.

“No,” the Grandmaster disagrees, his tone still mild. “You shouldn’t. Stay a while. Help me.”

“Help you?” Loki’s brow furrows, and he looks out of the window once more, seeing green grass spread toward the horizon before his very eyes. If this man has the power he claims to have, if he is truly as great a sorcerer as this, there is no help _Loki_ might give him, nothing he might offer with his own paltry skill. “How?”

“You hungry?” the Grandmaster asks, as smoothly as a warrior sidestepping a blow. As if in response, Loki feels his belly let out a painfully audible rumble, and he feels a tinge of warmth come to his cool cheeks as his face flushes. The Grandmaster  _smiles_ , and gestures for Loki to follow him as he leaves the room. Clad even as he is in these strange pyjamas ( _what had the Grandmaster done with his armour? Had he undressed Loki with magic, or…?_ ), Loki cannot help but give chase. They descend a series of stairs and come out onto a field of green grass – the building in which Loki had slept is the only one Loki can see, and he looks about, lips pressed together. His stomach is traitorously vocal about his hunger, which means he had undoubtedly slept for longer than a night, but as Loki impatiently looks in one direction and another, he sees no source of food.

“Is there actually anything to—” He watches as the Grandmaster puts out his hand, and from the very ground sprouts a sapling, which soon becomes taller and wider, growing at such a rate Loki has to scramble back to keep from being hit by one of its branches. The tree grows so fast that it soon spreads above them in a wide, thickly-leafed canopy, as a makeshift parasol for the warm sun, and then it begins to sprout a dozen different fruits, all drastically different colours, shapes and sizes. When the tree comes to a stop, an apple falls directly from its sturdy bows, down into the Grandmaster’s hand, and he holds it out to Loki.

Loki stares dumbly at the shiny skin of the perfect, red fruit. It  _seems_  like an apple. It smells like an apple. Even when Loki’s tongue flicks from his mouth and he tastes the air, it  _tastes_  like an apple.

“Take it,” the Grandmaster says: his tone is soft, but unwavering. It is an  _order_ , that much is for certain... And yet Loki feels no abrupt desire to disobey. He is too hungry, too confused, too full to the brim with too much information: he snatches the apple from the other’s hand and sinks his teeth into the hard flesh, feels it give way with a satisfying _crunch_ , and Loki moans as its juices settle on his tongue, tangy and slightly bitter. He attacks the thing with a viciousness he hasn’t displayed in the longest time, his princely manners forgotten – he truly is  _starving_ , hungry in a way he hasn’t been for eons, and soon the apple is gone entirely from sight. It is not merely the thirst and starvation he has withstood in these past days, after all: his very lifeforce had been burned away from him, his magic desperate to keep him alive, and he is as a fire that has burnt its fuel down to the very ashes.

He becomes aware of the fact that as Loki had devoured the thing, the Grandmaster had remained entirely still before him,  _watching_  him. The Grandmaster doesn’t reach for any fruit to eat himself, and yet his eyes are full of hunger, so full that Loki feels himself  _wish_  to falter, but doesn’t.

“There weren’t any seeds,” Loki says, conversationally, as he wipes his hands on his thighs. He doesn’t show that he notices the Grandmaster’s hungry stare, his parted lips. Now that he has eaten  _something_ , he is a little more aware of himself, his surroundings, and his magic is reaching out in curling tongues and tendrils as it always does – and now he can feel the power radiating from the Grandmaster in slow, even waves.

Loki’s heart begins to beat a little faster in his chest. Create atmospheres? This man, Loki is certain, could create  _universes_ : so close as they are, now, Loki feels as if he has come too close to a burning sun, feels the power that hovers in the air all around the Grandmaster, and the worst thing, the worst thing, is that the man is  _smiling_. Does he ever  _not_ smile?

“Why would there be seeds?” the Grandmaster asks. “Did you want some?”

“No,” Loki says. “But— Fruit… You made the tree grow so quickly. How?”

“Magic.”

“But that’s—” Loki cuts himself off. He hates feeling like this, feeling like he’s in someone else’s debt, feeling like he  _owes_  them something, hates feeling like he knows  _nothing_. And not with this man, who is so impossibly powerful, so huge beneath his small skin… The Grandmaster leans in, expectant.

“That’s  _what_?” Loki takes a step back. Fear blooms within him like some toxic flower, and he shakes his head slightly to the side as he moves: the Grandmaster steps forward too, and Loki has to prevent himself from flinching at the way he uses his size, the way he _towers_ over Loki, the way his power surrounds Loki on every side… Loki’s heart is pounding.

“I should go,” he says, in an almost panicked tone.

“You’re not still hungry?” the Grandmaster asks casually, gesturing to the tree above them. Loki feels positively enveloped by his power, as if he’s in the eye of a thunderstorm and is surrounded by ozone on every side, but the fruit looks  _so_  inviting, and his mouth is watering at the very thought of trying some of the strange and exotic fruits that are growing alongside the apples on this tree. He might try to Skywalk away, but where is the closest planet to this one? Loki isn’t certain. Where is the next place he might be able to  _eat_  something? It is one thing to sustain a full stomach with a little magical assistance; it is another thing entirely to attempt to fill one’s stomach on magic and crumbs alone.

“Perhaps just a little more,” Loki relents shakily, and then he spreads out his left hand, making a conjuration of his own: a blanket of woven wools lays itself out on the shade of the vibrantly green grass, and a basket is woven from wicker in the very air before them. When it finishes itself, the wicker twisting into a handle, Loki takes it in his hand, then steps upon the air with it clasped in his hand.

There is something gratifying about the way the Grandmaster’s head tilts to watch him as he climbs the air in easy, careful steps. Loki is not called Skywalker for no reason at all, and it is easy for him to treat anything as firm ground if it suits him, whether he has an atmosphere or not. He stands upon the air as he reaches into the boughs of this great, strange tree, picking up the ripest and most colourful of the fruits it has to offer. Only when his basket is full to the brim and heavy with this seiðr-strange produce does he come down to the grass once more, to find the Grandmaster lying back upon the blanket Loki had conjured, his jaw rested against his palm, and his elbow against the ground.

“Paint me like one of your French girls,” he says smoothly, and Loki wonders if he can come up with anything  _other_  than cryptic statements. It unbalances him, to be met with such odd words from a man, a _creature_ , so potentially dangerous to him. Has he truly been snatched from the jaws of one death, known, to be clenched in the jaws of another, unknowable?

“Pardon?” Loki asks, and the Grandmaster does something more foreign and bizarre than anything yet: he  _pouts_. Like a petulant child denied a toy, he  _pouts_!

“C’mere,” the Grandmaster says, patting the blanket invitingly, and Loki sinks down onto the woollen spread, tipping the basket over between them. The fruit he had gathered spreads easily over the soft, blue surface, and Loki reaches for a fruit of brightest lilac, feeling its hard husk and twisting it open. Within, there are a dozen globules of blue bursts of colour, arranged like the seeds of a pomegranate, and he experimentally takes one, placing it within his mouth.

Immediately, he gags, coughing out the awful taste into his palm, and a glass of water is pressed to his lips by a sun-kissed hand. Drinking greedily from the glass, desperate to wash away the cloying taste, he looks at the Grandmaster as he takes his conjured glass back, setting it onto the grass behind him.

“You don’t like Yto fruit, huh?” he asks, and he looks at Loki as if Loki is something sweet and precious, something to be adored… He looks at Loki like a favourite pet, and Loki’s skin feels too tight, like it no longer fits the set of his bones and flesh and muscle. Desperately, he turns his head away, and looks at the grass instead of the man.

“It’s too sweet,” Loki mutters, slightly embarrassed, but the Grandmaster doesn’t laugh at him, and instead takes the other half of the Yto, scooping out a handful of the globules with two fingers and putting them into his mouth. His lips make a  _smacking_  sound around the two digits, a wetness sounding as he sucks the juices from his fingers, his eyes on Loki the entire time. Loki coughs, politely, and reaches for some sort of spice-scented citrus with a black skin.

“You mind if I ask you, aha, a question?” the Grandmaster asks, having drawn his wet fingers from his mouth. He trails off, interrupts himself with soft sounds, all the time – it’s a very strange facet of his speech, and Loki knows not what purpose it could possibly serve.

“Go right ahead,” Loki murmurs, digging his nails into the citrus’ flesh and beginning to peel it away. The segmented pieces of fruit are just as black as the outside, and he finds when he bites into a segment that it is heavily acidic, so much so that his tongue steams with it. The taste is positively  _divine_ , sourness and bitterness combining on his tongue, and he chews, swallows. Takes another piece.

“You  _look_  like an Æsir, right?” the Grandmaster says, idly digging more of the little Yto seed pods onto his fingers. By the Norns, his fingers look inviting, pressing as they do with such ease and finesse into the blue depths of the fruit, and the line for Loki between fear and arousal has always been thinly drawn. He’s a foolish man, always has that been the case. “But you don’t like sweets? That’s insane. The Æsir  _love_  sweets.”

“Not me,” Loki says airily, with more confidence than he feels, and he puts another segment of the black citrus onto his tongue, relishing the discomfort at its acid burn, and he feels as if he is on trial, under the strange and unblinking gaze of this oddity of a man.

“Uh huh.” Humming around his fingers, the Grandmaster scoops more seeds into his mouth, and Loki cannot help but stare at the way he draws his lips around his fingers, the way his cheeks hollow as he sucks the fruit into his mouth. “How come you’re so cold?” Uncomfortably, Loki shifts in his place.

“What?” he asks, sharply.

“You’re cold. Your skin. How come?”

“Are you  _getting_  at something?” Loki bites out, doing his best not to grind his teeth. Surely the secret of his birth hadn’t spread so quickly? Surely some bizarre stranger should not know the secret of his blood when Loki himself had only discovered it such short months past?

“It’s just not a very good illusion,” the Grandmaster says lightly, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m just, ah, trying to get a sense of your  _talents_.”

“What do you mean, it’s not a very good illusion?” Loki asks, and the Grandmaster chuckles, dragging his tongue over sticky fingers.

“Well, I know you look different on the outside, but your insides are all  _wrong_. All the organs are a little to the left of where they should be, a little scrambled up, and you have that layer of extra muscle only Jötnar have, to keep you insulated. The Æsir don’t have that. Not to mention, ah—" The Grandmaster’s eyes flit downwards as he trails off, his gaze resting in the vicinity of Loki’s crotch, and Loki reflexively claps his thighs together, his knees pressed tight to one another. Something about the Grandmaster’s searching look makes his skin tingle, even makes a little blood rush downward, but  _no_ , no,  _no_.

“How did you— When you undressed me, you  _would dare_ —”

“Oh, slow down, cowboy,” the Grandmaster interrupts him, tutting lightly, and then he says, “I can  _feel_  you. Your organs, your make-up. The only  _convincing_  thing about your little disguise is the size.” Loki sets his jaw, and the Grandmaster arches an eyebrow. “Oh. That’s just how big you are?”

“I should go,” Loki says, for the third time, and he sets the black fruit down.

“You’re not going anywhere,” the Grandmaster says mildly. There is no threat in it, exactly, and yet Loki understands it implicitly, understands that if he tries to leave, if he tries to move, the Grandmaster will prevent him. The fear and the desperate arousal thrill down his spine as one. There’s the slightest fragment of blue clinging to the Grandmaster’s lower lip, a single seed pod that hasn’t been drawn into his mouth, and Loki stares at it.

“Is that a threat?” he asks in a whisper.

“No,” the Grandmaster murmurs. “Look…  _Loki_. Loki. Listen: you’ve kinda got a spark about you, ya know? Sure, you aren’t as powerful as  _me_ , but ha, nobody is.” Loki shudders, exhaling, and he does his best not to look at the Grandmaster, his gaze focused instead on the check of the picnic cloth. “You gotta admit, you’re excited just looking at the stuff I can do – don’t you want to learn?” _That_ makes him look up, and he sees

“Learn?” Loki repeats. “What, you’re offering to  _teach_  me?”

“Sure,” the Grandmaster says, showing his teeth as he smiles. The seed pod of the Yto clings to his lower lip even still, and Loki can’t help but stare at it, so  _distracting_  as it is.

“And in return?” Loki prompts, cautious because he knows this will end badly for him, he _knows_ some terrible price will be asked of him. “What would you want of me?”

“Help me build my little planet,” the Grandmaster says, shifting his shoulders, and he leans over the fruit between them. The sweetness of the Yto clings to him in a cloud, and Loki breathes in the scent, feeling the tingling weight of the Grandmaster’s very magic on the air. “Keep me company.”

“Sorry, I just— There’s something on your mouth.”

“What? Oh, how embarrassing…” the Grandmaster reaches up to his upper lip, wiping over it, and Loki shakes his head; his hand begins to wipe down the corners of his mouth.

“No, no, just let me do it,” Loki mutters, reaching out and using his thumb to catch the Yto seed on the pad, but before he can draw it away, the Grandmaster’s mouth opens, and his lips close tight around his thumb. His mouth is hot and slick with saliva, and Loki gasps as the Grandmaster’s tongue ( _should it be that long? What species is this man?)_ wraps around the pad and pulls the Yto seed away. Loki stares as the Grandmaster’s throat bobs, and fear mingles with arousal: his overwhelming instinct to run away, to flee as far as he can from this man’s obscene power, is caught short. Arousal, as it has a hundred times before, wins its battle over fear. Loki swallows. “Keep you company?” he finally repeats.

The Grandmaster releases his thumb, and grins.

“It’s not as if you can say  _no_ , is it?”

“Isn’t it?” Loki asks, although the very words send a shudder down a spine. “You wouldn’t stop me from leaving.”

“Wouldn’t I?” the Grandmaster replies easily, mimicking Loki’s casual tone. As he speaks, he climbs over the fruit on the blanket, coming to lie between Loki’s legs, his palms resting either side of his hips. The silken fabric of the pyjamas has never felt thinner, and Loki wishes he could clasp his thighs together once more without finding the other man in the way. “I could stop you, easily. It wouldn’t be difficult to. You just _said_ yourself I’m much more powerful than you.” Loki tries to shift back on the grass, tries to scramble out from beneath the Grandmaster, but the Grandmaster catches him short, his hands clutching at the backs of his calves, and Loki has to bite back a whimper.

“I didn’t say that,” Loki says in an undertone as the Grandmaster’s hands slide to touch his knees, and begin to slide smoothly over the silken fabric clinging to his thighs. By the  _Norns_ — “You wouldn’t stop me from leaving. And I could say no if I wanted.” And yet, and yet! Loki isn’t saying no, but if he  _did_ … What would the Grandmaster do to him? Loki shivers once again. “What would you do if I  _did_ refuse?”  He doesn’t know why he asks, perhaps because he is a fool, but he tries to wrench himself free and he finds he cannot beneath the impossible strength of the Grandmaster’s clutching hands, the slight smirk of his lips.

“Take, uh, take what I wanted,” the Grandmaster murmurs, lowering his mouth to the side of Loki’s knee and pressing a kiss through the silken fabric. Loki sits back on his heels, staring down at the other man as his mouth slowly hovers over the inner part of Loki’s thigh, coming lower,  _lower_ —

“You wouldn’t,” Loki whispers. Fear is hot beneath his skin.

“Oh, I would,” the Grandmaster replies. His mouth is so close now, so  _close_  to Loki’s cock, to the two openings between his legs, and why,  _why_  should this electrify his skin, cause his very magic to bubble to the surface? Why should a being of such clear power threatening  _rape_ affect him to such obscene arousal? He can feel himself hardening some as his skin grows more sensitive, as he feels the Grandmaster’s fingers play upon the lines of his thighs, as he feels his hot breath. He tries to kick the Grandmaster off, but he can scarcely so much as move his leg, and the Grandmaster _grins_ at him. “I’d tie you down, rip off these pyjamas I so  _kindly_ gave you, and I’d take what you owe me.”

“Owe you?” Loki laughs, airily, and slightly hysterically as his cock gives a twitch between his legs, even as he tries to shove the Grandmaster away, but finds his shoulders immovable beneath the press of Loki’s palms. It’s pressed against the fabric of the pyjama bottoms now, wet at the head and soaking into the strange fabric, and further down he can feel his lips wetten at their sides, feels himself wet there too. “Please. I hardly asked you to save me. Grandmaster, let me go.”

“Didn’t you?” the Grandmaster asks, ignoring the demand, and he tongues Loki’s entrance through the fabric of the pyjamas, his supernaturally long tongue flicking over his outer lips and pressing the fabric right against him, his own saliva making the fabric even wetter against Loki’s cunny. “You practically invited me.” The Grandmaster sucks him through the fabric, slurps at the base of his cock and the top of his entrance, and Loki’s hands grasp and scrabble at the blanket beneath him, his eyes shutting tightly at the  _divine_  sensation. “In fact… Huh.” He draws back, and Loki lets out a groan of loss.

“What are you doing?” Loki demands, humiliated at the desperation that seeps into his words, and the Grandmaster looks up at him from his place between Loki’s legs.

“I’m stopping,” the Grandmaster murmurs, reaching for a piece of the black citrus and putting it into his mouth, chewing easily into it. His mouth doesn’t so much as hiss for the acid – what must that foreign tongue be made of? “You didn’t  _ask_  me, no… Which means I did you a favour. In fact, I’d say I did you about… Five favours. All in a row. Guess you should pay me back before I start giving you any more.”

“You’re manipulating me into staying,” Loki murmurs breathlessly. He should take his opportunity while he has it – he should run! He should run, he should run… “Simultaneously giving me a promise of  _more_  – more power, more pleasure – whilst implying I’m in your debt. That’s very subtle.”

“Thanks,” the Grandmaster says, but before he can say anything else, Loki is lunging forwards, crushing their mouths together, his hands curling themselves tightly, roughly, in the other man’s hair – it is a rough and tumble thing, a biting, savage thing, and Loki’s teeth drag over the Grandmaster’s lower lip and break it, leaving their mouths full with blue-flowing blood, but the Grandmaster doesn’t seem to care – if anything, he is spurred on.

The blood of the Grandmaster tastes like the yellow grasses of the Fon system, sour, bitter and salty all at once, and Loki gasps and groans into the other man’s mouth as the Grandmaster shoves his thigh between Loki’s own and leaves Loki grinding down against the surprisingly muscular flesh.

Loki pulls their mouths apart, feeling the Grandmaster’s hot blood dribbling down his chin, and he says, “Make it twenty-eight.”

“What?” the Grandmaster’s head tilts back into the harsh, grabbing feel of Loki’s nails, and Loki feels his heart beat ever faster.

“I’m worshiped on twenty-seven planets: let this be the twenty eighth, and I’ll stay.”

“You want  _me_  to worship  _you_?” the Grandmaster asks, and he laughs, the sound feral and stained with his own blood. His power thrums through Loki’s chest, and Loki feels like he may burst into pieces at any moment. Loki changes his shape in the Grandmaster’s lap, his skin becoming ever hotter, his skin darkening, his eyes growing deeper set and more golden, until he is a double of the man himself, and the Grandmaster’s soft “ _Ooh_ ,” makes Loki’s heart skip a beat.

“You really know how to sell, sell, sell,” the Grandmaster murmurs against Loki’s lips, and then he drags him into another kiss, and Loki –  _stupidly, stupidly! This is the truth of the matter: Loki is stupid!_  – melts like ice into his mouth. 

❀ ❁ ✿ ❀ ✿ ❁ ❀

“I should go,” Loki murmurs blearily, scarcely able to lift his head, he is so exhausted. He sprawls on the picnic blanket, the Grandmaster’s spend dripping down between his legs and staining his white thighs in electric blue. The Grandmaster has been fucking him since the sun was in the west, and it has long since set beneath the eastern horizon, and Loki is _sore_.

His thighs ache, and his knees are as jelly; his throat is hoarse from screaming. Some way through, he began to beg the Grandmaster to stop, to allow him rest, and the Grandmaster had laughed at him, and slid two fingers into his arse even as he hilted himself again and again in Loki’s cunny.

He should go.

He should run.

Trying to shift to his feet, he manages to get to his knees, and then he feels himself sway and stumble, falling onto his side.

The Grandmaster coos softly over him, gently drawing a lock of his hair back from his face, and Loki shivers as he draws Loki up to lean against his chest. Loki is so tired his head lolls against the warmth of the Grandmaster’s sternum, and the Grandmaster giggles quietly, then draws up some of the seeds from the Yto fruit.

“Too sweet,” Loki mutters.

“Be a good boy for me,” the Grandmaster whispers, and Loki looks at the twelve seeds that cling to the Grandmaster’s sticky fingers, smells their sickly juice thick in his nostrils. As he brings them forward, Loki powerlessly opens his mouth, and he is too exhausted to even _gag_ as he tastes them, swallows them.

He sucks the Grandmaster’s fingers clean.

“You will teach me?” he slurs out, even as the Grandmaster lifts him and holds him close to his chest like a bride.

( _You should have fled, little viper, whilst you could.)_

“Of course, baby,” the Grandmaster murmurs. “In fact, uh, I think you’re learning already.”

**Author's Note:**

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